Roman literature and culture

There are many depictions of eating in Roman literature - satires and parodies, but also memories or wise pieces of advice. These descriptions are often accompanied by positive or negative assessments of the quality and quantity of the food.  What is too expensive and what is too cheap for a feast, and how much food is too much? The article brings together various opinions of the Roman authors on these questions.

This paper suggests some far-reaching symbolic implications for women’s hair in Latin love elegy. Hair, hairdressing, hairdressers, and hair loss provided a metaphorical vehicle by which Tibullus (1.8), Propertius (2.18), and above all Ovid (Ars Amatoria 3; Amores 1.11-2, 2.7-8, 1.7, and 1.14) interrogated the power relationships that underpinned Roman society: between master and slave, women and men, Rome and her provinces. In my analysis, elegiac hair becomes an index to the socioeconomic realities of urban self-fashioning as well as a locus of anxiety about Rome’s increasing reliance on imported labor and consumer goods.

Abstract
This article focuses on some passages from the first part of the famous episode
of Lucretia ( Fasti 2,721-852). Ovid more than anyone exploits refined plot
devices to emphasize the virtue of the heroic Roman martyr of the  pudicitia.
In the beginning of the tale, the poet offers a sort of ‘epic’ prologue to the
tragic destiny of Lucretia, but ‘epic’ in Ovid’s way, since the episode does not
lack of clear interferences from both comedy (and maybe from mime?) and
erotic elegy. The mot  luditur in castris (v. 724) can be interpreted as a metaliterary
statement advising the readers that, after an epic approach expressed
through a distich, the tone will change. The  otium creates now the spaces for
certamina not marked by a war nature and concerning a poetry linked to the
erotic elegy.

Roman Dress and the Fabrics of Roman Culture investigates the social symbolism and cultural poetics of dress in the ancient Roman world in the period from 200 BCE-400 CE. Editors Jonathan Edmondson and Alison Keith and the contributors to this volume explore the diffusion of Roman dress protocols at Rome and in the Roman imperial context by looking at Rome's North African provinces in particular, a focus that previous studies have overlooked or dealt with only in passing. Another unique aspect of this collection is that it goes beyond the male elite to address a wider spectrum of Roman society. Chapters deal with such topics as masculine attire, strategies for self-expression for Roman women within a dress code prescribed by a patriarchal culture, and the complex dynamics of dress in imperial Roman culture, both literary and artistic. This volume further investigates the literary, legal, and iconographic evidence to provide anthropologically-informed readings of Roman clothing.

This collection of original essays employs a range of methodological approaches - historical, literary critical, philological, art historical, sociological and anthropological - to offer a thorough discussion of one of the most central issues in Roman culture.

Cet article, écrit pendant ma thèse, plaide l’idée selon laquelle l’identité des cités antiques pouvait influer sur les pratiques philosophiques qui s’y déroulaient. En l’occurrence, le lien bien connu entre la baie de Naples et l’épicurisme romain est relié à l’identité de Naples comme cité plane graeca aux yeux de Romains, être épicurien étant pour eux synonyme de plane Graecus (p. 515-520). Les p. 520-536, sur Philodème et Pison, ont été reprises et révisées dans ma thèse. Les p. 536 (fin)-543 portent sur le rapport entre Virgile, Naples et l’épicurisme et n’ont pas été reprises dans ma thèse.

Aceastǎ monografie abordează o serie de aspecte ale mitului romulean, cât şi reperarea unor posibile paralele în cadrul altor cicluri de legende romane, mai ales cele ale lui Hercule şi Faunus, şi în cadrul naraţiunilor despre ultimii regi ai Romei. Existǎ, de altfel, o serie de povestiri despre Romulus, ce revin treptat cu alte personaje istorice sau mitice, în calitate de protagonişti. Acestea sunt relevante, pentru cǎ oferǎ o gamǎ amplă de analogii între diversele cicluri de legende, şi prezintǎ o mai bunǎ individuare a genezei şi a dezvoltǎrii, încǎ din timpuri îndepǎrtate, a unor legende eroice asemǎnǎtoare între ele, dar, luate în ansamblu, mereu modificabile în timp, în ceea ce priveşte particularitǎţile şi numele personajelor.

Il confine, qualunque esso sia, rappresenta il simbolo delle relazioni che una comunità stabilisce al suo interno e con lo spazio circostante; costruire un confine significa separare, ma anche creare, inventare un luogo e dotarlo di regole proprie; esso costituisce, se così si può dire, l'atto di fondazione di una cultura. Per rendere sicuri e inviolabili i loro confini i Romani hanno scelto la via della "sacralizzazione" o addirittura della "divinizzazione". In questo modo essi hanno tentato di sottrarre, almeno idealmente, i confini all'eventualità della rimozione, della revocabilità o della negazione a cui sono, per loro natura, esposte tutte le creazioni umane. Per questo le morti sul o per il confine non possono che essere paradigmatiche e ammonitrici. Dalle storie che le raccontano, infatti, si dipartono fili che attraversano e legano tra loro alcuni nodi fondamentali della cultura romana, quali il rapporto con gli dèi, la costruzione dello spazio, il valore performativo dell'immagine, la nascita della legge, le regole del potere; nodi che permettono di cogliere nella loro complessità non solo il significato di questi racconti, ma anche le ragioni di quella sorta di "ossessione" per i confini che costituisce senza dubbio uno dei caratteri più originali dell'antropologia romana.

The satires explored in this volume are some of the trickiest poems of ancient Rome’s trickiest poet.  Horace was an ironist, sneaky smart, and prone to hiding things under the surface.  His Latin is dodgy and difficult.  The challenges posed by these satires are especially acute because their voices, messages and stylistic habits are many, and their themes range from the poet’s anxieties about the limits of satiric free speech in the first poem to the ridiculous excesses of an outrageously overdone dinner party in the last. 

For students working at intermediate and advanced levels of Latin, this book makes the satires of Horace’s second book of Sermones readable by explaining difficult issues of grammar, syntax, word-choice, genre, period, style.  For scholars who already know these poems well, it offers fresh insights into what satire is, and how these poems communicate as uniquely ‘Horatian’ expressions of the genre.

يناقش هذا البحث عدة نقاط، تبدأ بخلفية تاريخية موجزة عن علاقة روما بأثيوبيا في العصر الإمبراطوري، ثم أثيوبيا في بعض الأساطير الرومانية، والأوصاف العرقية للأثيوبيين، كما يتناول العبيد الأثيوبيين في روما، وهذا من خلال نصوص أدبية لاتينية مع مقارنتها بمصادر يونانية ولاتينية أخرى كلما دعت الضرورة

This paper discusses two Roman reliefs from the Dalmatian hinterland, one of the goddess Diana from Proložac near Imotski, the other of the girl Lupa from Sovići near Grude in Herzegovina. Earlier scholarly discussions ascribed artistic values to the portrait of Lupa, while the relief of Diana was considered as superb crafstmanship, but artistically inferior to Lupa’s portrait. Using these two portraits as a case study, the paper will question the existing approaches to Dalmatian provincial art, in particular the notion that Graeco-Roman visual rhetoric was artistically superior to local, provincial interpretations.

Ma thèse de doctorat porte sur le combat de cavalerie dans le monde romain du Ier siècle a.C. au VIe siècle p.C. Il s’agit d’un travail de synthèse, traitant de la doctrine d’emploi de la cavalerie aux époques tardo-républicaine, impériale et proto-byzantine. Les questions organisationnelles et stratégiques sont abordées, mais la focale est surtout mise sur la tactique et la physionomie du combat. L’objectif de cette recherche est de rendre compte de l’évolution de l’art de la guerre durant la fin de l’Antiquité en analysant spécifiquement les enjeux liés au développement et à l’utilisation de la cavalerie. L’importance croissante des troupes montées dans la stratégie impériale marque en effet une rupture importante dans l’histoire de l’armée romaine. Au primat des guerres offensives, de la bataille rangée et de l’infanterie lourde succède progressivement celui de la temporisation, de la guérilla frontalière et des cavaliers-archers. Ces changements, qui n’ont jamais fait l’objet d’une analyse approfondie, sont ici situés dans le temps long de l’Antiquité romaine. Le dialogue des sources narratives, techniques, figurées et archéologiques permet de dégager un schéma évolutif cohérent, un « développement organique des formes de combat » (Hans Delbrück) que je réinscris dans le contexte plus large de l’évolution de la culture militaire impériale, en attachant une importance particulière au rapport des Romains à la guerre et à leur perception idéale des rôles respectifs de l’infanterie et de la cavalerie.

Prix André Corvisier 2018 : http://www.icmh-cihm.org/en/51-the-winner-of-the-2018-corvisier-prize-announced

Panaetius of Rhodes was a Stoic philosopher of the 2nd century BCE. Pupil of the Stoic scholarch Diogenes of Babylon, then of his successor Antipater of Tarsos, he was himself at the head of the Porch, probably since the year 129 BC. He played a central role in his time, connecting Stoic philosophy and Roman culture, also thanks his relations with the group of politicians and intellectuals gathered around Scipio Africanus Aemilianus (or Scipio Africanus minor, 185-129 BC). Considering that Panaetius’work has come down only through indirect and fragmentary evidence, his texts are indeed testimonia, that is paraphrases of his words extrapolated from successive literature. This collection modifies Van Straaten’s way of extrapolating evidence from Cicero De officiis, considering both the structure of Panaetius’ On duty, described in De off. I 6, and the historical context in relation to which Panaetius presumably wrote his treatise. It adds Italian translation and commentary.

Since its discovery, which took place in Pompeii in 1938, this ivory statuette of Indian manufacture has not stopped asking questions about its subject, its origin, its function before its arrival in the Roman municipium. In this paper, after an examination of the status quaestionis about the statuette (dating, possible iconography, provenance, context of discovery) I will try to understand who its owner could have been and therefore what a Pompeian of the first century could have seen in such a particular artifact. An answer may come from Ovid's Metamorphoses, in particular from a section of the 10th book dedicated to myths associated with ivory and female prostitution, and from the Roman custom to exhibit curious objects ("mirabilia") to stimulate conversation during banquets.